Indonesia will not let asylum seekers off ship

Indonesian officials have refused to allow 78 Sri Lankan asylum seekers to get off the Australian ship that rescued them from the high seas more than a week ago, complicating efforts between the countries to deal with a surge in boat people.

The ethnic Tamils including women and children were drifting in a wooden boat with a broken engine in international waters near Indonesia when they were picked up by the Australian Customs Service ship. They were taken to Bintan island to be assessed under UN refugee rules at an immigration detention center.

But the local government has not granted approval for the Sri Lankans to disembark, said I Gde Widiarta, a law and human rights official in Riau Kepulauan province. The island is about 1,000 km north of Jakarta and across the Singapore Strait from Singapore.

Foreign ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah said yesterday that talks were underway between Jakarta and local government officials.

"We are trying to convince (them) that our aim to help the 78 asylum seekers is merely based on humanitarian grounds," Faizasyah said.

Australian foreign minister Stephen Smith said today that Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had told Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd that Indonesia would take the asylum seekers, and that expected that the local  governor would eventually "do what the president directs him to do".